Since Metro kicked off the first services in January 2007, 11 million passengers journeys have been made on its Free Town and City Buses in Bradford, Dewsbury, Huddersfield, Leeds and Wakefield.

That's enough to fill more than 122 Wembley Stadiums!

Moon

"Metro's squad of Free Town and City Buses are in a league of their own," said over-the-moon Metro Chairman Cllr Ryk Downes. "Our goal when our buses made their debut was to play a major role in making it easier for passengers to pass across our towns and cities and encourage people to transfer to the bus instead of their cars, thus reducing congestion and cutting down on CO2 emissions, which is the result we all want.

"As we pass the 11 million journey mark, our 6-3-2-2-2 formation of buses will continue to score with customers and make it easier to get people to the places they need to go, from shops to the workplace, from college to hospitals, and helping to keep West Yorkshire if not the World in Motion."

Metro's FreeCity and FreeTown bus services run every few minutes from early morning until early evening, Mondays to Saturdays providing a quick, convenient way of getting around town and city centres. Their routes are designed to connect bus and rail stations with shopping centres, hospitals, colleges and universities, and key business and leisure locations.

FreeBuses have contributed to the reduction of city and town centre congestion by encouraging people to leave their cars at home and use connecting trains and buses instead. They have also been shown to have increased numbers of shopping trips, and have enabled people with mobility problems or with buggies, small children or large packages to carry, to make journeys they would not otherwise have made.

Parrot

"The FreeBus services' operators have told us that feedback from passengers has been very positive," added Cllr Downes. "And I'm pleased to report that not one of those 11 million passengers has been as sick as a parrot "

At the end of May, the breakdown of passenger numbers centre by centre were as follows:
• Leeds - 6,781,781
• Bradford - 1,541,938
• Wakefield - 1,470,093
• Huddersfield - 1,107,435
• Dewsbury - 75,291

• Total - 10,976,538

The 11-million mark has been passed in the subsequent 10 days.